Constitutional Drift

This chapter intends to explore the roots of the Polish ‘constitutional crisis’ by utilising the concept of constitutional drift. While the Polish 1997 Constitution contains provisions that would enable interpreting it by using the lenses of Sciulli’s societal constitutionalism (which we call the ‘societal imaginary’), such opportunity was disregarded by more dominant liberal and communitarian imaginaries present in the political and constitutional discourse. The latter contributed to fostering a governance structure that strengthened the executive (the cabinet) at the expense of all social actors whose rights are strongly embedded within the Constitution – social partners, civil society and professional self-government organizations. Overall, the processes similar to those happening to the juridical power after 2015 in Poland, had been happening to other competitors to power prior to 2015 and constitutional crisis should be seen as a relatively late phase of the constitutional drift resulting from overlooking possibilities granted by societal imaginary.